MUSICAL EVENTS Beg.inn.ing of tl e End T HERE have been rumors for some time that Mr. Bing's lame- duck season is going to qplout peacock feathers. It hasn't sprouted any yet-at least, not in the performances I have encountered. The Metropolitan Opera opened on Monday nIght of last week, with the usual fash- ionable audience at fifty dol- · lars a head. The opera was the one Mr. Bing started his career here with : Verdi's " D C I ". 1 on ar 0, In t 1e pro- d uctIon put together then by Margaret \Vebster. The first time this production was on VIew, twenty-one years ago, it was unquestionably a stun- ner. For one thing, we had not had a "I)on Carlo" at the Met in man) years. For another, the great Italian bass Cesare Siepi was making his debut in the role of Philip II of Spain, and a conductor of stature, Fritz Stiedry, was in the pit. The re- vival last week revealed the same sets and costumes, by Rolf Gé rard, and they are admirable. There was the typ- ical Bing touch in a stageful of superb star singers. But the "taging, as redone by Patrick Tavernia, sagged badly, los- ing all the tension it 01 iginallv had. Most of the singers simply stood around and sang. And the conductor this time was Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, a sec- ond-rater, whose orchestra alternately drowned out the sIngers and limped flaccidly through the score. One new and welcolTIf' feature appeared: the stage band did not have "heet music propped up on its instruments; it played from memory, as it should have done for years. This added a touch of real- iS111 to the auto-da-fe scene. The sing- ers must be judged individually, since there was precious Ettle coÖrdination among them. Three were veterans of the original production: Cesare Sicpi, ho n1akes an unforgettable figure as the aging and arthritic King Philip and still sings with remarkable musicality, though his voice has lost some of its velvet; Robert Merrill, the Rodrigo, who, incredibly, sings with nearly all the beauty of tone that he produced two decades ago; and L ucine Amara, who sang the bit role of the Celestial Voice more or less accurately. Pldcido I)omIngo was the Don Carlo. In thL ïhsence of adequate direction, he over- acted a trifle. But he sang as beauti- fully as any tenor I have heard in this part. It is almost impossible to visualize Martina Arroyo as Elizabeth of Valois. The singing was fine, hut the physical appearance and the acting were pretty unconvincing. Grace Bumbry, on the other hand, made an excellent Princess Eboli-one with presence and fire. Paul Plishka sang wonderfully well as the Friar, and John Macurdy ,. was a menacing Grand Inquisitor " F AUST," on "'T ednesday night, was eVen less im- preSSIve, owing to a ill ulti- tude of flaws. This is the prod uction concocted by Jean-Louis Barrault and Jacques Dupont, the team that was responsible for the disastrous "Carmen" of sev- eral years bdck. [t may be that Mr. Barrault doesn't understand opera, but a suspicion crosses m} mind that, as a great man of the theatre, he takes the condescending attitude toward it that theatre people sometimes do. The danc- ing soldiers in the first scene of "Car- men" showed that he considered that opera to he merely amusing. In Act III of "Faust," he, or Mr. Dupont (which amounts to the same thing), has caused a large tin soldier to be placed on a pedestal in the middle of the stage, where it remains throughout the scene. I can only suppose this is in- tended to lend a touch of humor to Valentin's death. I find it ridiculous. i\nd in the Kermesse scene, which is widely thought to have been inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the danc- ers in Flemming Flindt's ba]]et look and move like aristocrats rather than peasants. There were a few sma]] im- provements. The erotic ballets de- rnanded by nineteenth-century opera are almost always embarrassing, and l\1ilko Sparemblek has created a new "'Talpurgisnacht hallet in Act III, Scenes 3 and 4, which, while it does not seem to have any particular rela- tion to the rest of the production, is certainly less embarrassing than its predecessor. And again the stage band was mercifully without those pieces of sheet music. ThIs seems to be one of the principal innovations of Mr. Bing's final season. F'aust WdS sung by Franco Bonisolli, a handsome young Italian with a light tenor voice that improved in qualit) as the evening went along. 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